WHY We Are to Be Always Ready For Trial —REASONS IN REGARD OF CHRIST 3/3

           (2.) In the consolations he gives them then (in exceedings) above other of their brethren, that are not called out to such hard service.  That part of an army which is upon action in the field is sure to have their pay—if their masters have any money in their purse or care of them—yea, sometimes, when their fellows left in their quarters are made to stay.  I am sure, there is more gold and silver—spiritual joy I mean, and comfort—to be found in Christ’s camp, among his suffering ones, than their brethren at home, in peace and prosperity, ordinarily can show.  What are the promises, but vessels of cordial wine, tunned on purpose against a groaning hour, when God usually broacheth them?  ‘Call upon me (saith God) in the day of trouble,’ Ps. 50:15.  And may we not do so in the day of peace? yes, but he would have us most bold with him in a ‘day of trouble.’  None find such quick despatch at the throne of grace as suffering saints.  ‘In the day when I cried (saith David), thou answeredst me, and gavest me strength in my soul,’ Ps. 138:3.  He was now at a strait, and God comes in haste to him. Though we may make a well friend stay, that sends for us, yet we will give a sick friend leave to call us up at midnight.  In such extremities we usually go with the messenger that comes for us, and so doth God with the prayer.  Peter knocks at their gate, who were assembled to seek God for him, almost as soon as their prayer knocked at heaven-gate in his behalf. And truly it is no more than needs, if we consider the temptations of an afflicted condition.  We are prone then to be suspicious our best friends forget us, and to think every stay a delay and neglect of us.  Therefore God chooseth to show himself most kind at such a time: ‘As the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ,’ II Cor. 1:5. As man laid on trouble, so Christ laid on consolation. Both tides rose and fell together.  When it was spring-tide with him in affliction, it was so with him in his joy.  We relieve the poor as their charge increaseth; so Christ comforts his people as their troubles multiply. And now, Christian, tell me, doth not thy dear Lord deserve a ready spirit in thee to meet any suffering with, for, or from him, who gives his sweetest comforts when his people use to expect their saddest sor­rows?  Well may the servant do his work cheerfully, when his master is so careful of him as with his own hands to bring him his breakfast into the fields.  The Christian stays not till he come to heaven for all his comfort.  There indeed shall be the full supper; but there is a breakfast, Christian, of previous joys, more or less, which Christ brings to thee in the field, and shall be eaten on the place where thou endurest thy hardship.

           (3.) In seasonable succours which Christ sends to bring them off safe.  He doth not only comfort them in, but helps them out of, all their troubles. There is ever a door more than the Christian sees in his prison, by which Christ can, with a turn of his hand, open a way for his saint's escape.  And what can we desire more?  All is well that ends well.  And what better security can we desire for this than the promise of the great God, with whom to lie is impossible? And I hope the credit which God hath in his people’s hearts is not so low, but a bill under his hand will be accepted at first sight by them in exchange of what is dearest to them—life itself not excepted.  Look to thyself when thou hast to do with others.  None so firm, but may crack under thee, if thou layest too much weight on them.  One would have thought so worthy a captain as Uriah was, might have trusted his general, yea his prince, and he so holy a man as David was.  But he was unworthily betrayed by them both into the hands of death.  Man may, the devil, to be sure, will, leave all in the lurch that do his work.  But if God sets thee on, he will bring thee off; never fear a ‘look thou to that’ from his lips, when thy faithfulness to him hath brought thee into the briers.  He that would work a wonder, rather than let a runaway prophet perish in his sinful voyage—because a good man in the main—will heap miracle upon miracle rather than thou shalt miscarry and sink in thy duty. Only, be not troubled, if thou beest cast overboard, like Jonah, before thou seest the provision which God makes for thy safety.  It is ever at hand, but sometimes lies close, and out of the creature’s sight, like Jonah’s whale—sent of God to ferry him to shore —underwater, and the prophet in its belly, before he knew where he was.  That, which thou thinkest comes to devour thee, may be the messenger that God sends to bring thee safe to land.  Is not thy shoe, Christian, yet on?  Art thou not yet ready to march?  Canst [thou] fear any stone can now hurt thy foot through so thick a sole?

WHY We Are to Be Always Ready For Trial —REASONS IN REGARD OF CHRIST 2/3

4. When the cross is on—what then? then the Christian must ‘follow Christ.’He is not [to] stand still and fret, but ‘follow;’ not be drawn and hauled after Christ, but [to] follow, as a soldier his captain, voluntarily.  Christ doth not, as some generals, drive the country before him, and make his servants fight whether they will or no; but he invites them in, ‘I will allure her...into the wilderness,’ Hosea 2:14.  Indeed a gracious heart follows Christ into the wilderness of af­fliction as willing as a lover his beloved into some sol­itary private arbour or bower, there to sit and enjoy his presence.  Christ useth arguments in his word, and by his Spirit, so satisfactory to the Christian, that he is very willing to follow him; as the patient, who at first, may be, shrinks and draws back, when the physi­cian talks of cutting or bleeding, but, when he hath heard the reasons given by him why that course must be taken, and is convinced it is the best way for his health, then he very freely puts forth his arm to the knife, and thanks the physician for his pains.

           Reason Second.  Christ deserves this frame of spirit at our hands.  Of many, take but two particulars, wherein this will appear.  1. If we consider his readiness to endure trouble and sorrow for us.  2. [If we consider] his tender care over us, when he calls us into a suffering condition.

1. Christ deserves this readiness to meet any suf­fering he lays out in his providence for us, if we con­sider his readiness to endure sorrow and trouble for us.When God called him to the work of mediator­ship, he found the way laid with sharper stones, I hope, than we do in the road that is appointed us to walk in.  He was to tread upon swords and spikes, all manner of sorrows—and those edged with the wrath of God; this was the sharpest stone of all, which he hath taken out of our way, and yet how light did he go upon the ground!  O had not his feet been well shod with love to our souls, he would soon have turned back, and said the way was unpassable; but he goes on and blinks not; never did we sin more willingly, than he went to suffer for our sin.  ‘Lo, I come,’ saith he to his Father, ‘I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart,’ Ps. 40:7, 8.  O what a full consent did the heart of Christ rebound to his Father’s call, like some echo that answers what is spo­ken twice or thrice over!  Thus, when his Father speaks to him to undertake the work of saving poor lost man, he doth not give a bare assent to the call, but trebles it; ‘I come...I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart.’  He was so ready, that before his enemies laid hands on him, in the instituting of the Lord’s supper, and there did sacramentally rend the flesh of his own body, and broach his own heart to fill that cup with his precious blood, which with his own hand he gave them, that they might not look upon his death now at hand as a mere butchery from the hand of man’s violence, but rather as a sacrifice, wherein he did freely offer up himself to God for them and all believers.  And when the time was come that the sad tragedy should be acted, he, knowing the very place whither the traitor with his black guard would come, goes out, and mar­cheth into the very mouth of them.  O what a shame were it, that we should be unwilling to go a mile or two of rugged way to bear so sweet a Saviour company in his sufferings!  ‘Could ye not watch with me one hour?’ said Christ to Peter, Matt. 26:40—not with me, who am now going to meet with death itself, and ready to bid the bitterest pangs of it welcome for your sakes? not with me?
2. Christ deserves this readiness to meet any suf­fering he lays out in his providence for us, if we con­sider his tender care over his saints, when he calls them into a suffering condition.Kind masters may well expect cheerful servants.  The more tender the captain is over his soldiers, the more prodigal they are of their own lives at his command.  And it were strange, if Christ’s care, which deserves more, should meet with less ingenuity in a saint.  Now Christ’s care appears,

           (1.) In proportioning the burden to the back he lays it on.  That which overloads one ship, and would hazard to sink her, is but just ballast for another of a greater burden.  Those sufferings which one Christian cannot bear, another sails trim and even under.  The weaker shoulder is sure to have the lighter carriage.  As Paul burdened some churches, which he knew more able, to spare others; so Christ, to ease the weaker Christian, lays more weight on the stronger. ‘Paul laboured more abundantly than them all,’ he tells us, I Cor. 15:10.  But why did Christ so unequally divide the work?  Observe the place, and shall find that it was but necessary to employ that abundant grace he had given him.  ‘His grace,’ saith he, ‘which was bestowed on me, was not in vain; but I laboured more,’ &c.  There was so much grace poured into him, that some of it would have been in vain, if God had not found him more to do and suffer than the rest.  Christ hath a perfect rate by him of every saint’s spiritual estate, and according to this all are assessed, and so none are oppressed.  The rich in grace can as easily pay his pound, as the poor his penny.  Paul laid down his head on the block for the cause of Christ as freely as some—and those true, but weak Christians —would have done a few pounds out of their purse. He endured death with less trouble than some could have done reproach for Christ.  All have not a martyr’s faith, nor all the martyr’s fire.  This forlorn con­sists of a few files picked out of the whole army of the saints.

WHY We Are to Be Always Ready For Trial —REASONS IN REGARD OF CHRIST 1/3

  First. There are reasons taken from Christ, for or from whom we suffer, why we are to be always pre­pared for trials.

           Reason First.  Christ commands this frame of spirit.  Indeed, this frame of spirit is implied in every duty as the modus agendi—that qualification which, like the stamp on coin, makes it current in God’s account.  ‘Put them in mind,’ saith the apostle, ‘to be ready to every good work,’ Titus 3:1; be it active or pas­sive, they must be ready for it, or else all they do is to no purpose.  The word there is the same with this in the text, and is taken from a vessel that is fashioned and fitted for the use the master puts it to.  We do not like, when we are to use, or to mend and scour, a vessel, cup, or pot, to have them out of the way at the time we call for them; but to find them at hand, on the shelf, clean and fit for present use, or our servants shall hear of it.  Thus God expects we should keep our hearts clean from the defilements of sin, and our affections whole and entire for himself—that they be not lent out to the creature, nor broken and battered by any inordinacy of delight in them, lest we should be to seek when he calls us to do or suffer, or be found very unprepared, without much ado to set us to right, and make us willing for the work, as the same apostle, ‘If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the Master’s use, and prepared unto every good work,’ II Tim. 2:21.  Now, as God commands this readi­ness in all, so especially in suffering-work: ‘If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me,’ Luke 9:23. These words may be called the Christian's indenture. Every one that will be Christ’s servant must seal to this before he hath leave from Christ to call him Mas­ter; wherein you see the chief provision Christ makes is about suffering-work, as that which will most try the man.  If the servant can but fadge with that, no fear but he will like the other part of his work well enough.  Now, I pray observe how careful Christ is to engage the heart in this work; he will have his serv­ants not only endure the hardship of his service, but show their readiness in it also.  Four remarkable pas­sages are put in for this purpose.

1. The Christian ‘must deny himself’—that is, deliver up his own will out of his own hands; and, from that day that he enters into Christ’s service, ac­knowledge himself not to be sui juris—at his own dis­posal.  Whatever Christ bears, he cannot{,} to hear his servants, when sent by him on any business, say, ‘I will not.’
2. Christ tells his people the worst at first, and chooseth to speak of the cross they must bear, rather than[of] the crown they shall at last wear; and withal, that he expects they should not only ‘bear’ it—this the wicked do full sore against their wills—but also ‘take it up.’  Indeed he doth not bid them make the cross, run themselves into trouble of their own head, but he will have them take that up which he makes for them—that is, not step out of the way by any sinful shift to escape any trouble, but to accept of the burden God lays for them, and go cheerfully under it, yea thankfully, as if God did us a favour to employ us in any suffering for him.  We do not take so much pains as to stoop to take up that which is not worth something.  Christ will have his people take up the cross as one does to take up a pearl that lies on the ground before him.
3. This they must do every day—‘take up his cross daily.’When there is none on his back, he must carry one in his heart, that is, continually be preparing himself to stand ready for the first call, as porters stand at the merchants’ doors in London, waiting for when their masters have any burden for them to carry.  Thus Paul professeth he ‘died daily.’  How, but by a readiness of mind to die?  He set himself in a posture to bid God’s messenger welcome, whenever it came.  This indeed is to ‘take up the cross daily,’ when our present enjoyments do not make us strange to, or fall out with, the thoughts of future trials.  The Jews were to eat the passover with their loins girded, their shoes on their feet, and their staff in their hand, and in all haste, Ex. 12:11.  When God is feasting the Christian with present comforts, he must have this gospel shoe on, he must not set to it as if he were feasting at home, but as at a running meal on his way in an inn, willing to be gone as soon as he is refreshed a little for his journey.